The Second Wave of Feminism
Throughout history, the female gender has been oppressed and mistreated by the male-dominated society that we live in, which creates gender inequality. For a long time, women have tried to fight for equal rights, privileges, and respect in society as equal human beings to the male gender. The quest for gender equality resulted in feminist movements being formed to fight for equality and protest against discrimination based on gender. The feminist movements’ activities resulted in the first wave of feminism that started in the early 1960s, which focused on fighting for equal legal rights for women as men had and suffrage. After the end of the first wave which lasted for about two decades, the second wave of feminism came along to continue the quest but using different methods and strategies,
In the second wave, the feminists used their bodies as a reference point or as a med to fight for equal rights and opportunities or freedom in issues such as reproductive rights, family, the workplace, sexuality, and other factors that the first wave did not achieve. In the second wave, the feminists used their bodies so that they can get the needed attention from society and attract attention to them so that their issues can be heard. Using their bodies as a reference point was also meant to show the society that women were not as fragile as the men thought they were due to their physical nature to be discriminated against and treated unfairly.
Also, the feminist used their bodies to show that they are capable of doing what men do in the society if given the opportunity and not used as figures of pleasure, domestic worker, or child-bearer. The use of the female body was also meant to celebrate the female body as being strong, empowered, source of pleasure, and fertility and to put across a message to the men that without them, the world would not be the same. Since the women’s bodies held a lot of potentials, then they needed to be treated equally as with respect and opportunities.